Let me step forward
– quite literally -- and admit this from the get-go: I like to play from
the ladies’ tees.

I offer this confession
freely and proudly. I’m neither traitor to my sex nor denier of my gender, just
another golfer looking for an edge, and to what lengths – for isn’t
length always the issue? – won’t we golfers go to discover one? I
found mine by learning to give an inch and enter the foreign country I’d always
considered no man’s land.

Believe me, it wasn’t
easy. At first, my tactical advance felt like shameful retreat, not gaining
ground. But reducing the length of the golf course has so changed my enjoyment
of the game that I come before you with the passionate conviction of a true
believer anxious to pass on nothing, well, short of revelation.

So, please, join me. It
gets lonely for a guy up there.

OK, before I get too far
ahead of myself, let me step back and state the obvious: For male golfers other
than the most skilled, the markers we pick to play from tend to have less to do
with the reality of our games than with the ideal games we imagine we possess.
Sure, the tips are beyond most of us, but we opt to play from them anyway.
Co-conspirators in so many acts of flagrant golficide,
they massage our egos nonetheless, abetting the fragility of our golfing hopes,
even as they reveal how misguided our measurement of our golfing selves may be.
In our minds, then, moving up becomes a sad concession to core-rattling
masculine truths: advancing age, decreasing skill, diminishing power. And who
wants to be conceding that?

Jane Blalock, 27 times a
winner on the LPGA Tour, once told me how, at Pro-Ams,
she’d marvel when her male partners instinctively trekked to distant outposts
while she teed off more sensibly from the middle whites. "If we switched,
I’d still be 20 yards beyond most of them," she shrugged. "It’s a
shame men make a difficult game more difficult for themselves."

But what if we reframe
that observation? What if it’s not about hard or easy? What if it’s about
shaking things up every now and then to make the golf course a little different
and the good walks we take on them more interesting?

A sports psychologist I
met at a dinner party reversed my dive. His prescription, in retrospect, seems
simple. Until I could seriously play again, I’d have to change my expectations.
Check your ego at the bag drop, he counseled, play a shorter golf course,
forget about score and just enjoy the experience.

"But what about my
handicap?" I countered.

"Either you accept
the one you hadn’t bargained for..."

He didn’t need to finish.
Protected by a medical excuse, I figured I could accept this apostasy to my Y
chromosome. I’d still be playing golf – albeit an abridged edition
– right? So what if my friends teased me; they wouldn’t begrudge me, and
anyone else I might tee it up with would, doubtless, applaud my grit to soldier
on. At least that’s what I tried to convince myself as I entered into this
interregnum in my golfing life, consigned – until a pair of titanium
mulligans arrived two years later -- to surveying the landscape from (pick one)
the ladies, the women’s, the forwards, the reds. Red. How appropriate. To match
the color of my face the morning I first left my golfing buds behind me.

Funny, but they
didn’t care what tees I played from. Why, then, should I? It took me a
few rounds, but I lost my self-consciousness. Then something amazing happened:
My game actually improved. My chopped-down swing didn’t land me in the wild
levels of hell I knew all too intimately; it just put the ball in play. Shorter
distances in meant greens were approachable without howitzers. And I practiced
my chipping and putting. A lot.

But there was something
else: a new viewpoint, as if I’d stepped through the looking glass. Scanning
the horizon from the forward tees, I seemed to be gazing at an entirely other
golf course.

And I was.

Everything had shifted.
Bunkers, ponds, and hillocks, certainly, but nothing as dramatic as the
perspective from within. I no longer felt defeated before I’d even started. For
the time being, that would be enough.

*
* *

But that was then. Thanks
to the miracles of replacement surgery, I’ve returned to my rightful place with
the guys astern, but I haven’t turned my back to the fronts and the alternative
they offer to the grind. I still don’t like to feel defeated. So, three, maybe
four times a season, I happily seek haven ahead. What began as an act of
desperation originally designed to keep me in the game has actually evolved
into a nifty drill designed to sharpen it.

It turns out, some pretty
good instructors see the occasional round from the reds as just that.
"It’s a different challenge," says master teacher Jim Flick,
"and any time you can bring in a different challenge you’re giving
yourself a chance to improve." Flick believes that playing from unfamiliar
yardages hones distance judgment, while approaching from shorter yardages asks
golfers to think more precisely about the shot they want to play and the
quality of the result. Then there’s the course itself. "It will feel and
look different," he says. "That can only help awareness of course
management." All of which we can take with us when we drop back to longer
precincts.

Pia Nilsson, Annika Sorenstam’s longtime coach, now teaching
at Legacy Golf Resort in Phoenix, agrees with each of Flick’s points, and adds
one: The forward tees provide a reality check. "Do you score better or not
from them? If you don’t, what does that tell you?"

Interestingly, most
average golfers don’t, since most of us put far more emphasis on our full
swings than in the stroke-saving potential of our short games. Brad Faxon – no average golfer -- remembers his college
coach sending the team off from the forward tees precisely to test their short
games and, if the experiment went well, foster a sense of going low. "It’s
good for your mindset to make a few birdies," he says. Conversely, he
cautions, "it would backfire if we didn’t."

Which is why I never keep
score when I play up. I don’t need numbers to tell me how I’m hitting the ball,
and for me, this isn’t about scoring; it’s about insight and awareness. I want
to feel what it’s like to play shots that aren’t normally in my arsenal from
spots on the layout I’m not used to visiting to help me understand my game a
little better and appreciate the golf course a little more.

Hence, I never take my
show on the road. When I truncate my home track I have to turn off my autopilot
and consider every hole from a new angle. (A course I didn’t know as well would
just be another 18, not a familiar 18 reconsidered.) With an average reduction
of more than 80 yards from the middle tees I generally play from, each hole
presents new options and opportunities beyond the reach of my usual game.
Hazards normally safely in the distance suddenly taunt me to tempt them. Like
Tiger – and this may be the only circumstance in which we’re not legally
stopped from appearing in the same thought – I sometimes find it prudent
to lay low and leave my driver in the bag. I know I can still get home in two.

And even without my
driver, I’m still beyond customary landing areas. Of course, I have
played shots from these positions before – third shots after
flubbing one of the first two; so, my attitude is different. Instead of feeling
hang-dog for my ineptness, I’m positively focused on how best to attack. With a
wedge or short iron. Like – dare I whisper it? – Tiger. It can, as Faxon says, do wonders for the mindset, though there’s a
flip side, too; when I reach the green and discover I’m a far-flung 30 feet
from the pin – a result that would elate with my 3-hybrid from 190
– the disappointment is my reminder – thank you, Pia, you’re absolutely on target – of what I need to
practice.

It’s such a kick now and
then to be reminded that golf isn’t just a game of power that I’m surprised
more men don’t try this. Actually, I’m not. Nor does it surprise my friend Eric
Stake, who sometimes accompanies me on my abbreviated journeys. A superb
golfer, he’s a psychiatrist by trade, so he understands both the intricacies of
the psyche and the dark night of the golfer’s soul. "When we leave a putt
short," he asks, "what do we say? ÔHit it,
Alice.’ It’s a way of berating ourselves for being unmanly. Project that to
asking a man to give up, even for a day, what he thinks is his rightful place
to play from the forward tees. Before he’s swung a club, he’s Alice in his mind
already."

I’ll gladly support
anything – renaming tees, recoloring tees, adding additional tees -- that
alleviates that stigma for others. Call me Alice, if you want to, but I’m one
golfing Alice who looks forward to his visits to wonderland.

Let
me step forward – quite literally -- and admit this from the get-go: I
like to play from the ladies’ tees.

I offer this
confession freely and proudly. I’m neither traitor to my sex nor denier of my
gender, just another golfer looking for an edge, and to what lengths –
for isn’t length always the issue? – won’t we golfers go to discover
one?I found mine by learning to
give an inch and enter the foreign country I’d always considered no man’s
land.

Believe me, it wasn’t
easy. At first, my tactical advance felt like shameful retreat, not gaining
ground. But reducing the length of the golf course has so changed my enjoyment
of the game that I come before you with the passionate conviction of a true
believer anxious to pass on nothing, well, short of revelation.

So, please, join me.
It gets lonely for a guy up there.

OK, before I get too
far ahead of myself, let me step back and state the obvious: For male golfers
other than the most skilled, the markers we pick to play from tend to have less
to do with the reality of our games than with the ideal games we imagine we
possess. Sure, the tips are beyond most of us, but we opt to play from them
anyway. Co-conspirators in so many acts of flagrant golficide,
they massage our egos nonetheless, abetting the fragility of our golfing hopes,
even as they reveal how misguided our measurement of our golfing selves may be.
In our minds, then, moving up becomes a sad concession to core-rattling
masculine truths: advancing age, decreasing skill, diminishing power. And who wants
to be conceding that?

Jane Blalock, 27
times a winner on the LPGA Tour, once told me how, at Pro-Ams,
she’d marvel when her male partners instinctively trekked to distant outposts
while she teed off more sensibly from the middle whites. "If we switched, I’d
still be 20 yards beyond most of them," she shrugged. "It’s a shame men make a
difficult game more difficult for themselves."

But what if we
reframe that observation? What if it’s not about hard or easy? What if it’s
about shaking things up every now and then to make the golf course a little
different and the good walks we take on them more interesting?

A sports psychologist I met at a dinner
party reversed my dive. His prescription, in retrospect, seems simple. Until I
could seriously play again, I’d have to change my expectations. Check your ego
at the bag drop, he counseled, play a shorter golf course, forget about score
and just enjoy the experience.

"But what about my handicap?" I
countered.

"Either you accept the one you hadn’t
bargained for..."

He didn’t need to finish. Protected by
a medical excuse, I figured I could accept this apostasy to my Y chromosome.
I’d still be playing golf – albeit an abridged edition – right? So
what if my friends teased me; they wouldn’t begrudge me, and anyone else I
might tee it up with would, doubtless, applaud my grit to soldier on. At least
that’s what I tried to convince myself as I entered into this interregnum in my
golfing life, consigned – until a pair of titanium mulligans arrived two
years later -- to surveying the landscape from (pick one) the ladies, the
women’s, the forwards, the reds. Red. How appropriate. To match the color of my
face the morning I first left my golfing buds behind me.

Funny, but they didn’t care what
tees I played from. Why, then, should I? It took me a few rounds, but I lost my
self-consciousness. Then something amazing happened: My game actually improved.
My chopped-down swing didn’t land me in the wild levels of hell I knew all too
intimately; it just put the ball in play. Shorter distances in meant greens
were approachable without howitzers. And I practiced my chipping and putting. A
lot.

But there was
something else: a new viewpoint, as if I’d stepped through the looking glass.
Scanning the horizon from the forward tees, I seemed to be gazing at an
entirely other golf course.

And I was.

Everything had
shifted. Bunkers, ponds, and hillocks, certainly, but nothing as dramatic as
the perspective from within. I no longer felt defeated before I’d even started.
For the time being, that would be enough.

***

But that was then. Thanks to the
miracles of replacement surgery, I’ve returned to my rightful place with the
guys astern, but I haven’t turned my back to the fronts and the alternative
they offer to the grind. I still don’t like to feel defeated. So, three, maybe
four times a season, I happily seek haven ahead. What began as an act of
desperation originally designed to keep me in the game has actually evolved
into a nifty drill designed to sharpen it.

It turns out, some pretty good
instructors see the occasional round from the reds as just that. "It’s a
different challenge," says master teacher Jim Flick, "and any time you can
bring in a different challenge you’re giving yourself a chance to improve."
Flick believes that playing from unfamiliar yardages hones distance judgment,
while approaching from shorter yardages asks golfers to think more precisely
about the shot they want to play and the quality of the result. Then there’s
the course itself. "It will feel and look different," he says. "That can only help
awareness of course management." All of which we can take with us when we drop
back to longer precincts.

Pia
Nilsson, Annika Sorenstam’s longtime coach, now teaching at Legacy Golf Resort
in Phoenix, agrees with each of Flick’s points, and adds one: The forward tees
provide a reality check. "Do you score better or not from them? If you don’t,
what does that tell you?"

Interestingly, most average golfers
don’t, since most of us put far more emphasis on our full swings than in the
stroke-saving potential of our short games. Brad Faxon
– no average golfer -- remembers his college coach sending the team off
from the forward tees precisely to test their short games and, if the
experiment went well, foster a sense of going low. "It’s good for your mindset
to make a few birdies," he says. Conversely, he cautions, "it would backfire if
we didn’t."

Which is why I never keep score when I
play up. I don’t need numbers to tell me how I’m hitting the ball, and for me,
this isn’t about scoring; it’s about insight and awareness. I want to feel what
it’s like to play shots that aren’t normally in my arsenal from spots on the
layout I’m not used to visiting to help me understand my game a little better
and appreciate the golf course a little more.

Hence, I never take my show on the
road. When I truncate my home track I have to turn off my autopilot and
consider every hole from a new angle. (A course I didn’t know as well would
just be another 18, not a familiar 18 reconsidered.) With an average reduction
of more than 80 yards from the middle tees I generally play from, each hole
presents new options and opportunities beyond the reach of my usual game.
Hazards normally safely in the distance suddenly taunt me to tempt them. Like
Tiger – and this may be the only circumstance in which we’re not legally
stopped from appearing in the same thought – I sometimes find it prudent
to lay low and leave my driver in the bag. I know I can still get home in two.

And even without my driver, I’m still
beyond customary landing areas. Of course, I have played shots from
these positions before – third shots after flubbing one of the
first two; so, my attitude is different. Instead of feeling hang-dog for my
ineptness, I’m positively focused on how best to attack. With a wedge or short
iron. Like – dare I whisper it? – Tiger. It can, as Faxon says, do wonders for the mindset, though there’s a
flip side, too; when I reach the green and discover I’m a far-flung 30 feet
from the pin – a result that would elate with my 3-hybrid from 190
– the disappointment is my reminder – thank you, Pia, you’re absolutely on target – of what I need to
practice.

It’s such a kick now and then to be
reminded that golf isn’t just a game of power that I’m surprised more men don’t
try this. Actually, I’m not. Nor does it surprise my friend Eric Stake, who
sometimes accompanies me on my abbreviated journeys. A superb golfer, he’s a
psychiatrist by trade, so he understands both the intricacies of the psyche and
the dark night of the golfer’s soul. "When we leave a putt short," he asks,
"what do we say? ‘Hit it, Alice.’ It’s a way of berating ourselves for being
unmanly. Project that to asking a man to give up, even for a day, what he
thinks is his rightful place to play from the forward tees. Before he’s swung a
club, he’s Alice in his mind already."

I’ll gladly support
anything – renaming tees, recoloring tees, adding additional tees -- that
alleviates that stigma for others. Call me Alice, if you want to, but I’m one
golfing Alice who looks forward to his visits to wonderland.

Another
Ryder Cup has come and gone and still the trophy will not be brought back to
American soil.Who would have
thought the American team would lose 8 out of 12 singles matches on the final
day?Normally the U.S. team’s
downfall is Foursomes, or the alternate shot format – one that is not
very common here in this country.However,
this year they performed well, were ahead 10-6 going into Sunday, and it looked
as though the Cup was coming home.....until the unthinkable happened.

When
these unthinkable things happen in your own game – or due to someone
else’s misfortune - it is not the
end of the world.There is
always something to be learned and applied in the future.And this is exactly what happened for
Martin Kaymer when he faced probably the most crucial moment of the 2012 Ryder
Cup: he sank a clutch putt on 18 after both he and Steve Stricker’s
approach putts toward the slick pin placement trickled well out of the 2 or
3-foot knee-knocker range and into the justifiably ‘missable’ range of 8 feet
and 15-feet, respectively.Kaymer’s
strength in making that put ironically came from a discussion with Bernhard
Langer prior to this year’s Ryder Cup.You may recall Langer’s missed 6-footer during the 1991 ‘War by the
Shore’ at Kiawah that gave the U.S. team the victory.

Anyone
who has ever competed in Match Play knows that attitude is everything.Going in, you can know you are playing
poorly but you still have to muster up the courage to play with the game you
have.In Michigan, we have a
quasi-Ryder Cup event called The Atlas Cup that pits the top 12 private course
players against the top 12 public course players in both men’s and women’s
divisions.It is always an honor to
be selected to the team, yet the pressure to perform eats away at you as the
event gets nearer.I’ve made the
Public Team several times.

One year
I came to the competition recovering from an injured left shoulder and offered
to bow out, but the Captain uttered an unequivocal NO. Apparently she thought
my mere presence would intimidate......Yeah, right!The injury occurred in July and the
Atlas Cup was in August and I just barely surpassed the 6-week moratorium on
golf that the doctor ordered.I
knew I could only use half-swings, lessening distances significantly.But I made the best of it, expecting to
be well back of my playing partners on every drive.

Magically,
my accuracy took over where distance failed.Approach shots, though longer, nestled
on greens, often close to the pin, and my putter behaved beautifully. I won my
matches much to the dismay of longer-hitting opponents who figured that I could
not possibly continue to hit such shots.They were wrong.I had
steeled my mind to simply hit the club I needed in order to accomplish the
task....forgetting the fact that instead of hitting a 5-iron 155-160 yards I’d
need to pull out a fairway wood to compensate for my injury.Victory never felt so good!

In Kaymer’s situation, he had been playing poorly and his
attitude was not right; Langer told him this: "....to relax, to become involved in
the team-room atmosphere, and accept that I was an equal member of the team. He
said it was important to build relationships with the other guys, because that
would help me play great golf, knowing that we depended on each other. And he
told me that I must stop worrying about my game so much, because I was getting
in my own way."On 18, Kaymerchanneled Langer’s advice and imagined he saw a foot print across the
line of his putt. He can't recall the roll of the ball. Only the sound it made
hitting the back of the cup....a beautiful sound indeed.

To play
our best, we need to ‘get out of our own way’ as well.When we worry, stress takes over and
physiological changes occur which will only allow an outcome you won’t
want.Lighten up, stop fretting,
enjoy the camaraderie of the game.....and have fun.As U.S. Captain Davis Love III said the
evening before the competition, "We started these matches on a note of
friendship and we will end them the same way.In this world, we need all the friends
we can find."

Janina Parrott Jacobs, or the Silver Fox, is a multi-media consultant
specializing in golf, business, music, nutrition, fitness and women’s
issues. She blogs about golf at The A Position.
A 4 handicap, she lives in Michigan. Her full bio is here.

Choking.What an ugly word.Have you ever been accused of this?If so, the good news is this: In order
to have that unfortunate experience attributed to you, first you must put
yourself in position to win an event.The very people who may be accusing you of choking have likely never
even come close to playing well enough to think about entering the Winner’s
Circle.Why should you pay
attention to them?

Television
announcers have a field day with pronouncements of the C-word on players who
unfortunately fold during the final stretch.But does that make it so?

During the
last round of The Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, Adam Scott, seemingly in command at
10-under, rode the bogey train the last few holes, only to have the indomitable
and smooth-swinging Ernie Els slide
by to take the title.Officials had
already begun tracing Scott’s name
on the Claret Jug.In golf, things
can change that fast.Of course Jean Van de Velde’s meltdown was not far from everyone’s thoughts;
but Scott suffered a slower change
of events than Van de Velde’s infamous
18th hole at Carnoustie
in 1999.Adam Scott was in control for 68 superb holes of golf.It was not good enough.Here’s what Scott had to say:

"I probably spent all my nerves in the 24 hours leading up to
today.Once I was out there, I felt
completely in control. Even the last few holes, I didn’t really feel like it
was a case of nerves or anything like that, you know. It came down to not
making a couple of putts on the last four holes ... but I was quite calm.’’ A shot into thick rough on 17 and a
bunkered tee shot on 18 were part of the equation too but it seems one always
remembers the missed putts.

I would never use the word "choke" to
describe anyone’s misfortune on the golf course.We all know bad shots can happen at any
time; critics simply remember them better when they happen down the
stretch.No one considers a skulled
shot on the third hole in the opening round of a tournament as "choking;"hit the same shot on the 18th
in round 4 and now, you’re a "choker."

The truth is that golfers who put themselves
in a position to win are already champions.Your game was good enough to get you
there but sometimes bad shots – or bad breaks - happen at the worst
times.If you find yourself in a
position to win a championship, stay calm, slow down, breathe deeply, and focus
on the next shot.....accepting whatever happens.The tendency is to rush and "get it over
with," which is exactly what you don’t
want to do.

Adam
Scott did not choke; he simply made
some bogeys at the most inopportune time.Ernie Els was in position to
overtake him and did; but you may also remember some tournaments where The Big
Easy didn’t fare so well.Patience
and tenacity will triumph eventually.....just keep playing and competing and
you’ll learn how to cope.

We need to banish the word "choke" from our
commonly used golf terms. It serves no purpose.As for the television announcers?Any good golfer would happily take them
on to see how well they do.It is easy to sit up on high and
criticize...and totally another to actually accomplish something.

Janina Parrott Jacobs, or the Silver Fox, is a multi-media consultant
specializing in golf, business, music, nutrition, fitness and women’s
issues. She blogs about golf at The A Position.
A 4 handicap, she lives in Michigan. Her full bio is here.

I grew up in the Philadelphia area but moved away for about 10 years.
When I came back, in 1988, I really didn’t have any friends left here. It is
always more difficult to make friends once you are out school, and my
occupation as a dentist in a small office didn’t make it easy to find friends.

One day, I was working (as a nurse, my previous occupation) and was
forced to watch the Masters. Freddy Couples was walking down the fairway, the sky
was blue, the grass was green and he was smiling. It looked so relaxing that I
decided that I needed to take up this sport.After a few lessons, I was hooked.

I eventually saw an ad for an EWGA
(Executive Women’s Golf Association) league forming at Island Green CC in NE
Philly, which is seven minutes from my house. I had to join. I didn’t care if I
didn’t know anyone. I wanted the opportunity to play in a after work league. It
was a welcoming group and since most of us didn’t know each other, we all were
anxious to get to know each other. I joined EWGA and never looked back.

I was asked to help the beginner golfers and found I really enjoyed
helping them get to know the rules, etiquette, golf course management and
sometimes even swing tips. I moved on to become a co-coordinator of the league
and then ran for the position of Vice President and President. Being in a
leadership position, I decided to travel to the annual EWGA conferences to
golf, have fun and attend leadership meetings. Because of all the local and
national events that I have attended, I have made so many friends all over the
Philadelphia area and throughout the country.

This year the LPGA is playing the Solheim Cup
in Ireland. I did not think twice about signing up to attend because of the
friendships I have made, I know I will have a great time with all my EWGA friends.

Volunteering for the organization takes my membership to the next level.
It gives me contact with even more golfers. I also love the opportunity to play
competitive golf in both stroke and match play events in addition to the league
and local weekend outings.

Golf
equipment manufacturers are fond of tooting their own horns when their
equipment figures into a win on the PGA Tour. Their glowing press releases
touting the quality of their drivers, irons, wedges, shafts and balls used by
the winning pros carry the suggestion that all the seasoned professionals in
the field who did not win had simply not been using that piece of equipment.

The
hype even extends to accoutrements that have nothing to do with scoring, such
as FootJoy’s trumpeting that it’s been the
"undisputed number one shoe at golf’s oldest major" (the British Open) since
such records have been kept. I wonder who started keeping those records.

Some
releases don’t even mention the name of the golfer who won the event. So you
read, for instance, that "UST’s Proforce
V2 Wins Wyndham Championship." The golfer hoisting the trophy is identified
onlyas a "PGA Tour Rookie of the Year candidate" who "earned his first PGA
victory...". It’s as if the human winner of the event
was there only to provide support and alignment for the piece of equipment that
actually claimed victory. Perhaps there’s even a photo somewhere of the winning
shaft leaning up against the trophy.From
the manufacturers’ perspective, it is
the arrow and not the Indian when it comes to winning.

I
don’t mean to single out the fine folks at UST. I can wrap their shafts around
a tree trunk as well as any other shaft maker’s. But if it’s us weekend
warriors for whom equipment makers are in business to attract, maybe their
releases should focus on ourperformences, rather than that of a touring pro. Maybe
something like:

"FT-i Driver
Finally Finds Fairway at Sawgrass."

JAX
– Struggling through 15 holes of slices, duck hooks, topped drives,
skulls and duffs, Callaway’s FT-i driver finally found the fairway at the TPC’s
difficult 16th hole. "We believe the FT-i is the straightest,
most-forgiving driver on the market, in spite of what we saw here today," said
Art Vanderlay, vice-president for club misuse at Callaway. "Though
‘forgiveness’ was raised to New Testament proportions out there, we remain
confident that finding that fairway today was no fluke."

The
unique head design also provides flotation when flung into a lake or pond,
according to Vanderlay.

Or:

"Pro-V1 Most
Retrieved Ball at Hammock Dunes."

PALM
COAST -Titleist’s Pro-V1 golf ball was found to be the ball most
retrieved from the deep woods at the Hammock Dunes Creek Course, according to a
recent survey there. "Most golfers traipsing into the marshes to retrieve their
wayward shots here are walking out with Pro-V1’s," says Bob Sacomano, Titleist’s
vice-president for bulk sales. "We are proud that the Pro-V1 remains the most
mishit and lost ball on the market."

Or
maybe:

White Hot
Sinks 60-Footer For 102At Bay Hill

Orlando
-- Odyssey’s White Hot HG putter found the break that had been missed in the
initial read, and rattled in the bottom of the cup on Bay Hill’s 18th
green to preserve a final round 102.

"We
continue to be pleased that our HG multi-layer insert technology can overcome
even the most egregious putting strokes to produce scores much lower than they
deserve to be," says A.G. Pennypacker, group director for offline putting at
Odyssey Golf.

Since
1990, Odyssey has been putting putters in the hands of thousands of golfers who
have no clue. "Frankly, after reviewing the ‘reads’ of hundreds of hackers
across the country," says Pennypacker, "we’re frankly amazed more of these
people haven’t walked off cliffs so devoid they seem of any sense of
topography."

And
finally this snippet:

FootJoy: The Undisputed Number One Shoe in the Grill Room at
Miami’s Miccosukee Golf and Country Club.

But
the real news in golf equipment, for me anyway, is not about how the practice
and skill of the professional player can make equipment sing like a violin or
perform like a surgical tool. In that case it’s more about not letting the
equipment hinder the skill of the professional.

Those
releases should read more like, New Nike
Driver Does Not Get In The Way of Watney’s Win at
Doral, or something like that. No, the
real news is about this certain player that can take a driver resolutely
designed and weighted to produce a solid draw, but still mange to hit a banana
slice that would make a gorilla’s mouth water.

But
I understand the game. Equipment makers have to sell you on the fact that it is
ultimately the arrow. But I got to tell you, with these Indians out here, those
arrows had better be made of rubber.

Golf
equipment manufacturers are fond of tooting their own horns when their
equipment figures into a win on the PGA Tour. Their glowing press releases
touting the quality of their drivers, irons, wedges, shafts and balls used by
the winning pros carry the suggestion that all the seasoned professionals in
the field who did not win had simply not been using that piece of equipment.

The
hype even extends to accoutrements that have nothing to do with scoring, such
as FootJoy’s trumpeting that it’s been the
"undisputed number one shoe at golf’s oldest major" (the British Open) since
such records have been kept. I wonder who started keeping those records.

Some
releases don’t even mention the name of the golfer who won the event. So you
read, for instance, that "UST’s Proforce
V2 Wins Wyndham Championship." The golfer hoisting the trophy is identified
onlyas a "PGA Tour Rookie of the Year candidate" who "earned his first PGA
victory...". It’s as if the human winner of the event
was there only to provide support and alignment for the piece of equipment that
actually claimed victory. Perhaps there’s even a photo somewhere of the winning
shaft leaning up against the trophy.From
the manufacturers’ perspective, it is
the arrow and not the Indian when it comes to winning.

I
don’t mean to single out the fine folks at UST. I can wrap their shafts around
a tree trunk as well as any other shaft maker’s. But if it’s us weekend
warriors for whom equipment makers are in business to attract, maybe their
releases should focus on ourperformences, rather than that of a touring pro. Maybe
something like:

"FT-i Driver
Finally Finds Fairway at Sawgrass."

JAX
– Struggling through 15 holes of slices, duck hooks, topped drives,
skulls and duffs, Callaway’s FT-i driver finally found the fairway at the TPC’s
difficult 16th hole. "We believe the FT-i is the straightest,
most-forgiving driver on the market, in spite of what we saw here today," said
Art Vanderlay, vice-president for club misuse at Callaway. "Though
‘forgiveness’ was raised to New Testament proportions out there, we remain
confident that finding that fairway today was no fluke."

The
unique head design also provides flotation when flung into a lake or pond,
according to Vanderlay.

Or:

"Pro-V1 Most
Retrieved Ball at Hammock Dunes."

PALM
COAST -Titleist’s Pro-V1 golf ball was found to be the ball most
retrieved from the deep woods at the Hammock Dunes Creek Course, according to a
recent survey there. "Most golfers traipsing into the marshes to retrieve their
wayward shots here are walking out with Pro-V1’s," says Bob Sacomano, Titleist’s
vice-president for bulk sales. "We are proud that the Pro-V1 remains the most
mishit and lost ball on the market."

Or
maybe:

White Hot
Sinks 60-Footer For 102At Bay Hill

Orlando
-- Odyssey’s White Hot HG putter found the break that had been missed in the
initial read, and rattled in the bottom of the cup on Bay Hill’s 18th
green to preserve a final round 102.

"We
continue to be pleased that our HG multi-layer insert technology can overcome
even the most egregious putting strokes to produce scores much lower than they
deserve to be," says A.G. Pennypacker, group director for offline putting at
Odyssey Golf.

Since
1990, Odyssey has been putting putters in the hands of thousands of golfers who
have no clue. "Frankly, after reviewing the ‘reads’ of hundreds of hackers
across the country," says Pennypacker, "we’re frankly amazed more of these
people haven’t walked off cliffs so devoid they seem of any sense of
topography."

And
finally this snippet:

FootJoy: The Undisputed Number One Shoe in the Grill Room at
Miami’s Miccosukee Golf and Country Club.

But
the real news in golf equipment, for me anyway, is not about how the practice
and skill of the professional player can make equipment sing like a violin or
perform like a surgical tool. In that case it’s more about not letting the
equipment hinder the skill of the professional.

Those
releases should read more like, New Nike
Driver Does Not Get In The Way of Watney’s Win at
Doral, or something like that. No, the
real news is about this certain player that can take a driver resolutely
designed and weighted to produce a solid draw, but still mange to hit a banana
slice that would make a gorilla’s mouth water.

But
I understand the game. Equipment makers have to sell you on the fact that it is
ultimately the arrow. But I got to tell you, with these Indians out here, those
arrows had better be made of rubber.